prototyping the user experience

July 17, 2007

Cell Death 2010 Part I

Good-bye, mobile phones; hello, mobile web!

This article was originally published at AlwaysOn Nov 2005- in light of the recent developments with the iPhone as well as the movement towards open access at the FCC. It looks like our predictions are on track. Part II of this article was posted on this blog in Dec 2006.

Take a good look at your cellphone: Remember what it looks like and what it does (or doesn't do), because in a few years both it and the system that supports it will be dead and gone.

"But wait," you say. "We only just got here! We're just now getting 3G, W-CDMA, EVDO, and high-resolution QVGA screens and cameras, multimedia messaging, and all this other cool stuff!"

Sorry, that relic of the twisted-pair landline age became history the minute Google decided to unwire San Francisco. To understand why, you need look no further than the word itself: phone, which as we all know comes from the Greek phonos, for voice. It indicates that the primary focus of the cellphone, the network, and the phone companies that provide that network is voice. Accordingly, they charge for voice calls. However, the real network isn't about voice; it's about the services, transactions, data, and facilities people are willing to pay for. Voice comes as a free extra—hell, even video calls come as a free extra.

For service providers, this is a
revolutionary concept—and one that will force an entirely new business
model on them. For consumers, however, it's nothing more than the
natural evolution of the way they've already been communicating. To
them, the transition will appear seamless. They won't care where or how
they get their network connection as long as it's fast, reliable,
everywhere, and free. Ubiquitous unlicensed broadband will ensure that,
and more. It will put an end to the "walled garden" approach favored by
many telecoms and transform the entire "off deck" services industry.
Once the user switches from a provider-controlled network to one based
on ubiquitous broadband (UB) that's connected to the unregulated and
free World Wild Web, the floodgates aren't just opened, they're blown
away.

Where It Starts
All it takes to start that revolution is one device—a handheld network
device, something very like the Palm TX, Sony PSP, or Nokia 770—with a
Bluetooth headset. (After all, what use is a QVGA screen on a handset
that's pressed up against your sweaty ear?) With VoIP, a web interface,
and a broadband-wired world, the cellphone is a museum piece. Get ready
for the ODMs in Asia to churn out hundreds of millions of low-cost
devices. Pop in a WiFi CF card, and you're ready to roll. Did someone
say dumb pipe?

Do you know where your friends are, whether they're available for calls, or what they've been mobblogging
before you call them? If you were sitting in a cafe two blocks away
from someone you wanted to see, would you know it? Not with a
cellphone, not yet—but you would if you used software like Skype or
Gizmo on a wireless handheld coupled with a suite of socio-centric,
location-aware applications ... and every other person was doing the
same.

Or how about when the guy walking past wants to sell his old blues
collection and you desperately need a Blind Lemon Jefferson recording
to complete your set? Or maybe that woman buying a decaf soy latte
needs a full-time assistant right away, and you've just told your old
boss to shove it. What emerges is the mobile web, one that lives and
breathes in constant flux. Pretty soon it will be much more interesting
to browse the mobile web from your PC than to browse Web 1.0 on your
phone.

So just how far off is this brave, new world? Expect a transition phase
of no more than five years. According to Gartner Group, there will be 3
billion mobile subscribers by 2010, and more than 70% of voice
connections around the world will be wireless. While the changeover is
being implemented, the cellphone manufacturers will introduce a feature
that automatically detects an available broadband network and routes
your calls over it free of charge.

Key to the user's transitional experience will be the next generation
of user interfaces. Designed to run on cellphones, they'll work even
better and offer more capabilities when the connection speed goes up
and the platform they're running on is essentially a handheld computer.
Software that hasn't been designed with this platform migration in mind
is already history. Your handheld will soon know not only where you are
but also the quickest way to where you want to go and what's happening
on the road, track, or runway ahead. It will even stream your DVR
content to you on demand. And you'll be able to share whatever you
choose with whomever you wish. Didn't Yahoo just buy Flickr? Perhaps they should have tried to outbid News Corp. for MySpace too?

Want to have access to your music and video collection without carrying
it around—even when you don't have a handheld device? In the
not-too-distant future, ubiquitous broadband coupled with devices
automatically optimized to your chosen interface the moment you log in
will provide just that. Hire a car in Dublin and make the console
device aware of your identity, and with UB, you'll be able to watch and
listen to anything you've already purchased. Naturally, that console
device will also be a phone—a free one, of course. The car-hire people
will probably even throw in a branded Bluetooth headset free of charge
(in case you forgot to bring your own).

Think about it: Doesn't your iPod nano look a bit like a phone already?
That's because it's transitional technology: The memory chips inside
don't need to get bigger; they just need to be Wi-Fi connected to UB.
When they are, a mobile music player will become a phone, bypassing the
cellphone/MP3 player completely. Don't ask why your ROKR can't download songs into iTunes over the ponderous cellular connection; ask why you can't make a (free) call yet with a nano.

What's Driving It
So how do the service providers make money when calls will in essence
be free? Ask Google: It knows all about it. There are currently around 190 million cellphone users in the United States (out of 1.8 billion
worldwide) who will spontaneously switch to what is basically a web
interface for all of their communications—that's a lot of extra clicks.
Did eBay really pay over book for Skype?

And what will drive this revolution? Free telephone calls are a big
deal—big enough, in fact, to make the platform dominant—but eventually
it will be services (both paid for and free) that are the driving
force. In the end, it's all about content, and the groans of service
providers and content creators can already be heard as they wonder how
they'll pay for or get paid for all of this content when the consumer
expects so much for free. But free is rarely truly free: Facilities and
services have to be paid for, and advertising has already been
established as the accepted mechanism for this. Users can pay a premium
and get ad-free content, or they can choose a free ad-supported option.

Content has to be paid for, of course, and good content that draws more
traffic will demand a higher fee—one that's based on performance. With
a little planning on the part of users, technology can rise to the
challenge. Borrowing from the Japanese iMode model and the micropayment system,
content providers of the future will receive usage fees based on actual
consumption while also sharing in advertising revenues. Advance fees
will be paid to content creators and recouped against these earnings.
Service providers will start acting like publishing houses—doing deals
and courting the popular, talented, and famous—and micropayments will
be managed through services like Peppercoin and PayPal. Hey, doesn't eBay own them too? Anyone seeing a pattern here?

In the midst of all this will be the individual content providers,
hungry and empowered by the new technology. They will be light on their
feet, reacting to street-level demand and making fast money from trends
and fads. Micropayments will fly from content producer to user and back
again, all facilitated by the (micro-commissioning) network providers.
The debits and credits will appear on the monthly network bill, and net
earnings could be credited to the connected device. That device could
then be used to pay for an airline ticket or lunch—or even (when swiped
over an ATM, which the device has directed the user to) to obtain good,
old-fashioned paper currency. When the content creator's network bill
is paid in credit for services, prosumers will have truly risen and the
peacock's long tail will have spread wide open. We think Mr. Toffler
will be very happy.

As with any revolution, though, there will also be losers. Vodafone
went from nothing to being the largest capitalized company in the
United Kingdom in less than 20 years—how long before it goes back to
nothing if it fails to embrace this future and implement it before its
competitors? The service providers that remain under the mistaken
impression that they are voice companies will fall even faster than
they rose. But many of these same companies are now building their own
IP backbones, thereby reducing their costs and increasing their
independence. All they have to do is add 802.11 to their masts.

When It Will Happen
Did we say this transformation would take five years? Sorry: Make that
12 months. What's at stake here is a micro-percentage of every
transaction that takes place over UB—which could eventually mean every
transaction that takes place anywhere. Compare those numbers with a
revenue stream based largely on the constantly decreasing unit cost of
voice calls, and there can be no hesitation as to which model works.
What do you call businesses that control global financial transactions?
Banks,
perhaps? Of course some of the older telecoms still consider themselves
voice companies, but then who can forgive a technology company that
refuses to adapt? Maybe that's why they made such a fuss about Philly.

Once everyone has UB,
we will all rely heavily on the network for a vast range of
services—from our work and finances to our entertainment and personal
security. So what happens in the event of a failure or, worse, an
attack? When an event of that nature takes place, peer-to-peer networks
will form, linking a person at one end of the country to another
through 100,000 personal handhelds. Forget infrastructure failures
during disasters, the network will form and repair itself.

So what really matters? The devices? The network? Or perhaps something
less tangible. Perhaps what really matter are the interfaces and
services that support our lifestyles and social networks. Devices will
come and go; the network will ebb and flow—and through it all, we'll
remain connected to who and what matters most with much more than just
our voices.

Still want to keep that old cell?

Eduardo Sciammarella is Founder & CEO of Protohaus, a Santa Monica, Calif., interface design and prototyping consultancy. Protohaus has spun out a new product company, and launched Fidg't Your Social Networking Address Book.Steve Baker is a Tokyo based creative business consultant, artist manager, and writer.